Eleven Months
by xooxu
Summary: They diagnosed you in August. They gave you until June.


They diagnosed you in September.

They gave you until June.

**&break&**

You will never admit this to anyone, but freshman year starts out way rougher than you can handle.

Your Bro managed to get you into this school that you would never in a million years have picked, but he put his foot down every time you complained.

Fredrick Dean Maygorden Private Preparatory School. It's the best all-boys high school in Houston, even though it's technically not even in the city. You didn't know anyone who going there, except for a couple of douche bags from your jr. high that also transferred.

You wouldn't be caught dead with any of them.

But they sort of embody the school's population. Douche bags.

They all hate you.

You can tell this by how the one crush your awesome aviator glasses to pieces under his foot. You have this desire to punch that smug-ass look off of his face, but the guy sitting on your chest punches yours instead.

This is so far turning out to be the worst first day of high school ever.

**&break&**

The bruises didn't fade.

That was the first symptom you noticed.

**&break&**

Dirk doesn't react well when he sees you walk in with a face that looks like it lost a fight with a wall. Which it sort of did. Three times.

You don't tell him what happened, though, 'cuz you should really have been able to handle those juniors, and you want to get them back for it later. And also, maybe, because you didn't want Bro to know that you can't protect yourself against a bunch of dicks that fight dirty. Either way, not telling him just lands you in more trouble.

But you don't complain. Life just sucks, and you take the yelling then the cold shoulder like a champ. He takes away your data plan and texting. You actually don't care. When he finally moves on to the cold shoulder part, you leave to pester John.

You tell him that the aviators were smashed by some dicks at school. You don't go into detail. You do feel really bad that he probably spent as much time hunting them down as you spent finding that dumb rabbit you got him for his birthday. Not to mention how expensive they had to be, and he doesn't have an older brother rolling in puppet-porn-dough to pay for it, so you don't even know what he had to do to get them for you. It makes you feel ten times worse to realize all of this just now, but you don't bother to let him know its bothering you. It just isn't the Strider way.

He's pretty mad, but not at you, so he says. But he's still not as on top of his jokes as he normally is, and after he lets the third subtle jab at Nic Cage slip through, you tell him you have homework to do and sign off.

You were more focused on getting home after your face was smashed into pulp, so you had taken as little time as possible washing the blood off in the boys' room before you took public transport home. Walking into your bathroom after you finish the few pages of reading lets you get a glimpse of your face for the first time since it was rearranged. It's not too unrecognizable, but it does look pretty nasty. There's a cut above your right eyebrow that is still bleeding, but not as quickly as it was before, and a busted lower lip. Your right eye is slightly swollen and black. The rest of it is just deep dark bruising inching on the blacker side of purple. Your left cheek is either one giant bruise, or too many to distinguish between them, and you're starting to think you're lucky they didn't break your nose or jaw or something.

The rest of you is just pale and thin. Not that you were ever really Bro's size or anything, but you do wonder where all of your strength and energy went from a couple of years ago. You use to be a fighter, and fast as fuck, but now you can't even get away from a fight with some guys a couple years older than you, let alone hold your own.

Lately, the last month or so of summer, especially, you've been feeling too tired and fatigued to keep up your work out schedule like you wanted to. Probably a sign that you should not only start on it again, but probably pick up the pace. Plus, you've been losing weight. Dirk says it's probably just growth spurts, and it probably is, but you think that you should be insatiably hungry for that, then, right? Isn't that how puberty works? You put on a few pounds, then you grow a few inches?

You don't quite know what you're supposed to feel about how you look. Maybe you should feel anger, that might be logical. But you aren't sure that you are. It mostly makes you feel achy and hurt and want a new ice pack.

**&break&**

The next morning, not much has changed. Your face didn't heal much over night, your shades are still broken, and Bro is still giving you the cold shoulder during your nutritious and delicious breakfast of eggos and cream cheese.

Plus, the entirety of school still hates you. So yeah, sleep didn't magically fix any of your problems. What a sham.

A couple of dumbasses think it's funny to point out how beautiful you look, so you tell them sorry, but you only date guys who are prettier than you.

You manage to dodge the first few punches until a teacher takes notice. He manages to catch a good one on you diaphragm while you think he's stopped, though, before the batty old woman yells loud enough for him to run off.

You somehow end up with a suspension.

Dirk is positively scathing by the time he pulls the truck into the parking spot. He sat and stewed the whole ride home, but you were too lethargic to try and defuse whatever bomb he's been saving up. You expect it fully when he takes the key out of the ignition but continues to stare at the wall of the parking garage.

"Two. Fights. _Two fights_ by your second day of school."

"Do you think there might have been a reason I told you I didn't want to go to this school?" you cut him off with the turn-around that you hope will do two things: A. Get him off your back so you can just enjoy your two days off, and B. get him to put you in a normal high school.

"Don't you fucking dare, David. This school is the best, and I know you can do it, and that discussion is over. We're talking about how you can't manage to _literally_ go two days without getting a suspension."

You kick your feet up on the dashboard and start picking at your nails. "Yeah, uh-huh. Tell me all about it. You know, two years ago if I had punched a kid, you would have been proud of me."

"Because I was an idiot. But this is now!"

"They started it, Dirk! Both times! I don't even really know _why_ the first time!" you scream back, and it makes the split on your lip reopen. "They just hate me there, Bro! Not trying to get my face punched in, here! Promise!"

"Bull-_fucking_-shit, little man!" he roars. You've never really seen him this pissed off before. He's normally so chill and eclectic for normal parenting. Occasionally he'll call you a shit and tell you to do a chore or something, but you don't really associate him with father-figure of the year awards. "I know you! You probably talked your mouth off! Which is just as bad, Dave! That's called instigation!"

"_What do you want me to do!? _You know me! _You raised me _to be to be a smartass, and I'm not going to act different because you suddenly think I can do it!" You screech at him, and maybe even your voice breaks a little. You suddenly can't stand being in the car with him, so you grab your bag and get out, slamming the door when you do.

You storm to the elevator, trying to ignore Dirk screaming at you not to walk away from him, but he of course catches you before you can get to the doors. "We're not done talking!"

You want a nap. A really long nap. And maybe some Tylenol and an ice pack. A headache is forming in your temples as you shrug off Dirk's hand on your shoulder. "Can it wait? I've got the next two days to think about it," you tell him coolly, and in a lower decibel, as you push the button to the elevator. God you're so exhausted.

**&break&**

You spend most of your suspension trying to sleep off your perpetual headache and ignoring your brother, and Dirk spends it ignoring you and yelling at you alternatively. He picks fights with you over everything, like how you keep sleeping in and how you aren't keeping up with your chores. Once, he challenges you to a strife on the roof by throwing your sword at you, but you just ignore him by going back to your room and locking the door. You don't feel up to it, and you're still pissed at him for being pissed at you. You two had some rough patches before, but mainly it was you mad at Dirk for something. This is probably the realest fight you've ever had with him.

He started getting weird around the end of seventh grade, like his expectations in you changed. Before you were always a smart enough kid to coast by school on your own, but he suddenly got very parental over your grades and your progress. Plus, his early morning exercises and random play-fights and attacks all but dried up. Now, you suppose, he sort of wants you to grow up. Or, at least, that's the vibes you've been picking up. He's suddenly worried about your future. You sort of postulated that it has a lot to do with a mid-life crisis or something, even though you're pretty sure he's only 34.

You try to shuffle through the rest of Tuesday and Wednesday without killing him or getting yourself killed. You would talk to John or Rose or Jade about all of this, but Dirk took away your computer as an extension of your earlier grounding. He also locked up your turntables and hid all of your video games.

It isn't until Thursday night that you both realize that your face and ribs aren't healing right.

**&break&**

You miss the first half of school on Friday because suddenly Dirk's in freaked-out-mother mode and takes you to this emergency clinic first thing in the morning. He sometimes comes off to you as bi-polar or something. Maybe he does have some issues.

It's a doctor's office and it's a doctor, and there's not much more than that to it.

(Except there is. There really is so much more to all of it.)

The doctor, Dr. Erik, is a mature type of woman, maybe ten years on your Bro, and very nurturing. She goes through her conversations by level of importance: your summer, how you're feeling, the fight, the bruising. She starts asking you questions that don't seem quite related, like how often you get head aches, what you've been eating, if you've been sleeping well. This puts Dirk on edge, visibly tense and his face starts to look more and more nervous. You almost ask him to wait in the lobby, because he's making you worried when you would otherwise be fine.

The doctor is, if not down-right happy, pleasant and upbeat throughout the entire exam, and you begin to relax through the questions. It's been a while since your last exam, so you chalk it up to her being thorough about your health.

So it startles you a little when she tells you, "Okay, Dave, I want to go ahead and have you do some more in-depth tests over at the hospital for me. Just some blood tests for starters, and then we'll go from there."

You furrow your eyebrows and wonder if she's being serious right now that she's going you try to pass that tiny amount of information off on you. "Should I be worried? What exactly are you looking for?"

"We won't know until we do some tests. Just going off the symptoms, it could be any number of things causing your deep bruising and congealing blood. The tests will be preliminary. We're not exactly looking for something specific yet."

She tells you that she's going to make an appointment for you tomorrow in the morning as she writes out a prescription for the test.

You walk out of the office feeling oddly heavy.

You're welcomed back to school after your lunch period with little affair. No one really seems to notice you today, and when they do, you can't be arsed to respond. Most of your teachers don't really care that you're suddenly in their classroom after missing most of the first week of class. Your English teacher, who you would have taken Tuesday and yesterday afternoon, is pissed that you missed so far all of his classes, and he even scoffs when you ask for the work you have to make up.

"If you had bothered to remain in school on Tuesday, Mr. Strider, you would know that _you_ are responsible for finding the classwork and homework from other students on days you were absent," he tells you in a pretentious New Englander accent while glaring at your bruises and black eye.

You fantasize punching him in the face, but merely give up. You'll bite the bullet and ask someone in the class later.

Dirk gives you your phone and computer back that night. Mostly just because he's fretting over the blood test you have tomorrow, and that makes him more of a push over. He holds his ground a bit more firmly with the turn-tables, though.

You have several missed texts from John, and then a few from Rose and Jade peppered in with increasing frequency as you went longer without responding. John and Rose are both online when you open Pesterchum.

- ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] -

EB: hey! haven't seen you in a while, dave!  
EB: was starting to get worried there for a while.  
TG: yeah i basically got tired of you losers and decided to take a break from all of my friends  
TG: best idea i ever had  
EB: ... for real?  
TG: of course not i was suspended for fighting at school and bro took my computer and phone away for the duration  
TG: dudes been like  
TG: so tense  
TG: all he ever seems to do is parent lately  
TG: which i get might seem like a joke or whatever to you egderp but its the equivalent to your dad going a week without baking a cake or leavin you notes about how proud of his man-son he is  
EB: weird.  
TG: pretty much yeah  
EB: so, wait. you got in a fight?  
EB: when?  
TG: the first day of school  
TG: and then the second day of school  
EB: you got in a two separate fight the first AND second day of school?  
EB: why?  
TG: john  
TG: man  
TG: bro  
TG: manbro  
TG: dudes be like  
TG: all up in my bidness ery day  
TG: just looking for dem fights  
EB: dude, just stop. like now.  
EB: how on earth do you even think thats funny?  
TG: because its objectively funny and therefore i think its funny  
TG: see how logic works like that  
EB: no, but for real, what happened?  
EB: why'd you get in a fight?  
TG: pshh i dunno man they started it the first time  
TG: dude called me a prick or something and asked if i was going to join fag-club  
TG: then his friend started shoving me into the other guy  
TG: i hit him then he hit back  
EB: that's it?  
TG: well no i mean i hit him some more and then he punched my face a lot but yeah no thats it egderp  
EB: jeez, i was just asking  
EB: so what happened the second day?  
TG: omfg  
TG: john  
TG: a fight happened  
TG: the second day  
TG: dude called me beautiful and i told him i only date guys pretty than me  
EB: sick burn  
TG: i thought so  
TG: but he didnt so ...  
EB: I was being sarcastic, dumbass  
TG: yeah i no  
EB: so, no offense, but how'd you get your computer back then?  
EB: i mean, my dad wouldn't have given me any humanitary rights for at least a month  
TG: dude, i could so see your dad taking away your bathroom privacy or something  
TG: just ripping off the door in the middle of a poop  
TG: hey son just pretending youre not a human being because you punched a kid  
TG: have a nice shit  
EB: shhhhhhh! don't give him ideas!  
TG: does he read your pesterlogs?  
EB: no!  
EB: but just in case!  
TG: dude  
TG: are you seriously concerned that your father will remove the door to the only bathroom in your house?  
EB: no, dude, i'm just messing with you  
TG: oh  
EB: you're doing a bang-up job of avoiding my questions  
TG: what  
TG: oh i had to go to the doctor today because my bruises arent healing as fast as they should  
TG: and bros being all mother hen and worried  
TG: so i was able to talk him into giving me back my forms of communication under the guise that i was seeking console with my friends about my medicals needs  
EB: whoa  
EB: is it serious  
TG: i dunno yet  
TG: but i have to go do blood work tomorrow  
TG: but like i mean bruising = blood  
TG: so they probably have to do blood work no matter what  
TG: they didnt tell me what it could be so im not sure what to expect here  
TG: might be like "oh you just have a form of the flu heres some meds kthnxbye"  
TG: or it could be like "you gots aids oh nos"  
EB: whoa wait what!  
EB: you could have aids?!  
EB: for real?  
TG: um i suppose  
TG: but i was using that more as a literary dynamic than an actual suggestion  
EB: oh, yeah  
EB: but you sound pretty calm  
EB: are you not worried about this?  
TG: im tryin not to  
TG: besides its not like they told me im goin to die or anything  
TG: its just sucking a bunch of blood out of my body whoodeedoo  
TG: nothing major

**&break&**

Your conversation with Rose was considerably similar, except for the time she took to psychoanabullshitalyze your "overwhelming need to attract attention through physical altercations."

She was mostly concerned for your well being, though, when you told her about your blood test tomorrow.

You decide not to dwell on that stuff for the moment, though. Your two-day suspension put you back a lot in homework, especially at this pretentious prep school. Not to mention how you missed all but your first class on Tuesday and all of your morning classes today. You have the weekend to catch up on it, but you do the math in your head that if you have an average of one hundred-ish pages to read per your eight classes, plus three essays to write, it means you have a fuck-ton of work to do, so you'd need to at least get one class's amount of work done tonight.

But it's hard to focus on the material, and even though it's only five when you start on your reading, every part of you feels heavy and tired. You try trudging through the chapter, but you keep rereading some paragraphs over and over again. It isn't that they don't make sense, you just keep zoning in and out, and you end up missing key phrases, glancing over them while you try to skim the print.

You wind up giving up at around one in the morning, all sorts of information about AP Human Geography swimming in your head instead of in your essay.

The next morning, Bro gets you up earlier than you'd normally appreciate on a Saturday morning, especially after how late you stayed up last night. But despite how groggy and exhausted you feel, you're too oddly restless about the blood test in a few hours. Bro prepared a unusually normal-looking breakfast for you, complete with bacon and orange juice. "The doctor said to keep hydrated, so try to drink as much orange juice as possible."

You feel weird that he isn't eating, just sitting there with his coffee, silent and eerily somber as you pick at your sunny-side-ups. You don't typically eat such a large breakfast, mainly toast or a pop tart, so you don't have much of an appetite yet, or actually at all. You try to nibble on the bacon, but the best you can do is drink all of the orange juice that Bro refills for you.

You and your Bro were never all that great at small talk. Sometimes the two of you can debate ironically about some faction of pop culture, or have an actual conversation about real things, but typically, the two of you are comfortable with silences.

But you're not comfortable with this silence. The entire car ride is filled with only the sound of the wheezing air conditioner and the soft blather of some hit radio station Dirk always has on in his car, turn to just the right decibel that you know its there, but can't catch anything but the murmur of treble. You suddenly wish you knew how to strike up a conversation with him. About the whether, your friends, maybe ... his friends? Does he even have friends? You have no clue.

"Hey Bro?"

He doesn't take his eyes of the road, but he turns his face toward you, like he wants to look. "Yeah, little man?"

"Do you have any friends?"

He laughs, not more than a couple of barks. "Uhh, you, I guess." He takes some time to think about it, before continuing, "You know how I used to dj on Wednesdays and Fridays? I would talk to people, have drinks with them some times. But I never really felt close to any of them." He sort of leaves the statement trailing, like he's still contemplating it. "Why?"

"I dunno. Just a conversation starter? I needed some non-silence. It feels like were going to a funeral or something."

He doesn't respond to that right away, just keeps driving for another two or three miles before he talks again. "I'm sorry, kiddo. I just, I was never good at the parenting stuff, you know. Remember that time I had to take you the hospital when you were six."

"When I threw up all over the couch?"

"Ugh, god, yes. I had to clean that up later, thanks."

"We got a new couch?"

"Because I failed at cleaning it up. But anyway, I was worried to fuck-all that I had fucked up, you know? That it was my fault that you were sick."

"Well, I mean, I had food poisoning, Bro. So, yeah, it kind of was your fault."

"Yeah, I guess. But I mean, not so much a rational fear like that. I was more afraid that because you were under my care, I was destined to fuck up somehow, and that any sicknesses you had or have ever were going to be because I'm just shit at being a parent."

You think about that serious for a minute. "So, basically, you were right?"

"You little shit," Bro says, swatting at you while keeping his other hand and focus on the freeway traffic.

You laugh, and you feel slightly better. You settle for talking about how you did Dirk a favor by embedding your vomit into that couch (it was the most hideous thing you've ever seen, with a weird floral pattern and mismatched color choices, where did he even get it?) and then about how he bought the futon in the middle of the night, since he had no where to sleep.

You arrive at the hospital in surprisingly high spirits.

It's only nine in the morning, and the square in your Bro's pocket says quarter 'til ten, but the waiting room the attendant sends you to is quiet and not busy at all. Everything is quiet again except for the background noises, but you don't think about it as much this time. You just flip through a November 2008 issue of It*Girl while Bro scritches away at the paperwork for this appointment.

The nurse (not doctor) who calls you at 9:40 is young, probably a first year or intern, and not exactly hot, but not unattractive with minimal makeup. She gives the bruises, still a deep bluish-purple color, a second glance with a raised eyebrow, but doesn't comment on it otherwise. Bro waits in the sea of outdated magazines and roughly upholstered chairs while you follow Nurse Lindsey. You try to reign in on the irony while she explains the process and how long it should take.

She sits you on a bed in an area that is curtained off from a larger room with more beds and curtains. She asks you questions about any relevant health conditions you might have, and you have to tell her about your asthma, but she doesn't seem worried as she writes something down on her clipboard.

Nurse Lindsey rolls over a tray with a large syringe in a sterile plastic bag, a couple of antiseptic wipes, and a package of bandages. She opens the syringe, then sanitizes your arm before winking at you. "You'll feel a little prick, but you can handle it right?"

She sticks your left arm at the elbow on the "right," before you have time to tense up. It doesn't really hurt, but it causes a weird sensation as she pulls up on the plunger. You watch your blood seep into the plastic container. She doesn't take much at all, three fluid ounces, maybe, before she removes the needle and applies a bandage to the wound. "See? Not so bad, huh?"

"So, what exactly are they looking for in my blood?" you ask while she works on cleaning the area again.

"Mostly just a white blood cell count. They'll also look at your red blood cells and plasma, just to see what's inside you."

"But what are they trying to find? What kind of flu or whatever are they trying to see I've got?"

"Oh, I dunno. Could be lots of stuff. From the symptoms on your record, there's too many options for what it could be. This," she says, holding up the now capped and sealed vial of blood, "should give your doctor a better idea about why your bruising isn't going down. Lemme guess, I should have seen the other guy, huh?"

You laugh a little wryly. "Oh yeah. They had to cart him out, he was soo messed up," you say dramatically.

"Well, give it a rest at least until your doctor gets the results back. Which should be ... oh, by about Wednesday, give or take a day. Monday next week at the latest, depending on how swamped the lab is."

There isn't really anything for you to do after she finishes bandaging your arm up, so you just find Dirk and leave. He asks you how it went. You can only tell him that it wasn't a big deal and that the lab results should be in sometime this week.

The ride home is silent, but you can't feel bothered to try to fix it this time.

**&break&**

Monday morning comes far too soon for you. You managed to somehow get all of your late work caught up, except for one four-page essay your were suppose to read, but you'll just fake it if your General Honors English gives you a pop quiz on it or something.

You still feel incredibly naked without your shades. Dirk offered to lend you a pair of his, but you declined. You feel like over the top sunglasses would go over worse at this school than red irises.

Maybe you were wrong. You don't really know.

Either way, you keep trying to avoid direct eye contact with people, but still keeping your coolkid demeanor. You don't know that it works as well with your wide, expressive eyes. You know they're more than enough to make the ladies swoon, but they don't do much for you in this sausage-fest of a school.

Confrontation at least waits until after your first block to pop up while your stuck at your locker, trying to get the dumb lock to open for you. You've had it since the sixth grade, and it's fairly touch-and-go at times. You keep it for ironic nostalgia, and since your brother is quite shit at taking you to get school supplies. You've been thinking about getting a job, so you can just do a lot of this stuff yourself, but so far you haven't really felt the urge to immerse yourself in the fast food industry just yet.

Some douche slams his shoulder up against yours in a way that could be accidental, but you get the feeling its not. You confirm your suspicions when you turn around and find the same sophomore that got a good shot at your ribs last week.

"Hey, Beautiful. Sorry about that, wasn't watching where I was going." The guys is maybe twice your stature, but not much taller than you. He reminds you of the blond, crew-cut, straight-features preps that you could barely tolerate in middle school, except instead of rows of braces and softer, younger features, this guy's too-straight teeth and perfect, angular nose are just begging for someone to make them look lived in.

"No problem," you say under your breath. You don't think your brother would let you survive if you got in more trouble for fighting, and you think that you aren't allowed to make up any work from your second suspension on, which would severely damage your grade. Not that you really care about your grade, but the idea that this dickwad could in anyway affect your life is not one that you are too keen on. So you try to turn around and let the hit slide.

"I see your face is still lovely as ever. I should applaud the guys who got those good hits on you. Must have done a number." He leans in to talk directly in your ear when you turn around. The small group of guys behind might as well be canned for how on cue they start chuckling. But you've got this (or you know you could have this, whichever) and keep twirling your combination lock.

"Got to keep myself pretty for you, huh?" you ask him nonchalantly.

"That's a good boy," the douche bag says, ruffling your hair in mock approval.

You finally get the lock opened and swing the door open with enough force to gather the attention of the guy next to you, a mousy but not quite dorky looking guy. He only glances your way, though, before hurriedly gathering the rest of his things and leaving. Fucking sheep.

The dickwad, who you've decided to name Dickwad appropriately, leans back against the lockers, inadvertedly getting in the way of another freshman's locker, but the dweeby looking boy decides it isn't worth it after you give him a quick look. Dickwad chuckles a little. "Do you know why you were beat up?"

"'Cause I'm irresistible?" you venture, snatching at your AP Biology binder and book.

He barks a couple of quick, insincere laughs. "No. Because you think your hot shit, when all you really are is a skinny, little albino shit who can't fight for piss and likes to talk big."

You look right at him, all of your belongings gathered, and slowly close the locker. "Aren't I though? I mean, you're taking the time to talk to me, so I _must_ be something special."

There's a moment where you can see a burning desire to punch you across his face, but then you catch the quick flicker his eyes make to something behind you. You look over your shoulder to see one of the security guards watching the whole scene with mild interest. It makes you laugh. "Oh, I see. You probably would have to answer to, lemme guess, Daddy? If you were suspended for _another_ fight?"

He gives you a glare that you have an easier time ignoring now. "Whatever... Albino." With that, he pushes himself away from the lockers. You almost laugh.

"Really? That's what you come up with?"

Not that it's far off, though, per se. You are pale as fuck, with white-blond hair. The only color on you is your freckles and red eyes.

**&break&**

You're trying not to fall asleep in through Dr. Pitchoy's explanation of negative radicals in Honors Algebra 2 when Dirk calls the school. The teacher excuses you, telling you to take your things and go to the front office.

None of the office staff tells you why you're waiting. The receptionist just asks you to have a seat and that your brother is coming to pick you up. The student aides just glance at you repeatedly; you suppose they're wondering why you're there.

It's now the Monday after you went to get your blood taken. You guess they were really busy, or maybe your doctor's been holding on to them for some reason. Either way, homework and classwork has made for a good distraction from whatever is happening with your blood. But right now, you have nothing better to do than worry about why Dirk would be picking you up in person. Your bruises are finally an ugly patchy yellow around the edges, and only slightly blue at the worst parts, and they're still tender to the touch.

You took Lindsey's advice and avoided fights as much as possible all last week. The Dickwad, whose name you've learned is Kirk but don't really care, has taken to calling you "Alby" for albino, and none of the kids in your classes try to talk to you outside of classwork related topics. Not that you mind, but at your last school, they would at least be friendly with you, if not in actual awe of you some times. Mostly because you mouthed off to teachers and wore sunglasses in class, but still. You haven't seen any sign of the seniors who first beat you up.

Dirk walks into the office about ten minutes later. He's missing his hat and gloves, and his hair is a complete mess, but it's the kind of bed ridden mess that guys wear. He also looks like he got dressed in two minutes flat, polo wrinkly and no belt. The clock on the wall reads 1:20, meaning that Dirk was probably sleeping off his porn filming last night.

He stops dead in the doorway and just looks at you.

And you just sort of look back.

"The doctor called."

"I figured."

"She says as soon as possible."

"Meaning now?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. You have to talk to her, I think." You wave at the receptionist, who's been trying to eavesdrop without being noticed, but she hasn't done any typing since Dirk walked in.

He walks over to her, and you almost laugh when you see every student aide in the office turn to look at him. You forgot how intimidating your Bro looks to other guys. You also know that his dumb ass anime nerd shades cause about as many stares.

You slide into Bro's Ford in the visitor parking lot and lean your head against the window. Dirk gets in minute later, and you ask, "Did she say anything?"

"Just that the test results were in. And that she wanted to talk to us as soon as we could get there. ... And that it was important."

There isn't much to say after that, and you start wondering how many more tense, silent car rides your life has in store for you. You watch the scenery of Houston slide by from the freeway, looking anywhere but inside the cabin, but at Dirk. The route takes you briefly into the downtown mess of concrete roads, and you get a glimpse of the sky rises before you're looking at suburbia and strip malls again. You know some of the buildings, and try to think of what they're called. After you're past those, you try to keep busy by going over Algebra assignments, then AP Biology homework.

You pull out your phone when you run out of ways to distrct yourself otherwise. You decide to text Rose, since you think that it's almost three there, and she's got the most chance of answering.

You send her a hey and then a hey fucktard, but you don't a response. She's probably in class right now, being a perfect child with her phone turned off, or maybe in her locker where it's suppose to be. You send some similar texts to Jade, but you don't expect her to respond. It's like, fuck-all in the morning on her little island in the pacific.

Your brother pulls into one of the parking spots at the Doctor's office. It's a family care and emergency practice. It looks so unassuming from the outside, with only the sign out by the street and the decal on the glass door to let you know the different doctors' names, M.D.

The receptionist is cheerful, but you leave your Bro to deal with all the bullshit. You just want to sit. You have been sort of ignoring it, but you're always tired anymore, and it's starting to get the point where you get an urge to sit down if you stand for too long. Not like you actually feel weak, you don't get the strange shakiness or exhaustion you'd get after a good workout.

Dirk joins you in the chair next to you. He doesn't have any paperwork today, and he doesn't grab any of the new magazines. Just crosses his arms and stares straight in front of you.

"Dave?" an assistant calls from the door, and you both are lead to a small office and sat on the examination table. You feel really young all of the sudden when you have the room to kick your legs impatiently.

"Hey Dave, are you feeling?" Dr. Erik asks when she walks through the door and closes it behind you. She takes a look at your yellowing bruises and smiles. "Still having some trouble with that healing, huh?"

"Yeah," you assent.

"Well, Dave, we got the results from your blood test back this morning."

It sort of pisses you off that she leaves off there to open a folder. Just sits there silently and rustles through some papers. "And ...?" not you, but Dirk asks.

"Well, we're a little worried. Your white blood cell count was over 57,000. A normal count is somewhere between 4,500 and 10,000. So we need to do some more test, and also ask some questions about your medical history."

"Do you have an idea of what you're looking for now?"

"We've got a much better idea, but we still need to do some more tests. But we are looking for something, now. Not just generally poking around."

"What for?"

"I don't want to scare you, Dave, just yet. I'm going to ask your some questions, and they might be able to clear things up enough that I can tell you. Do you know anything about your family's medical history?" She asking both you and Dirk, but you answer her first.

"I was adopted. I don't have a family medical history," you inform her.

"Well, I guess that won't help then. Is there any chance that you could get his family's medical history? Through the adoption agency?" she asks Dirk.

"It wasn't through an adoption agency directly. I found him abandoned."

"How about any conditions when you were younger, Dave? Any previous incidents with profuse bleeding? Or any early treatments that might have included radiation?"

"No, nothing like that," Dirk answers for you.

"How about x-rays? How old were you when you had your first x-ray and where on your body was it done?"

"Like, six maybe? And on my wrist. I bruised the bone pretty bad, so they were checking for a fracture."

"Okay. Well." She looks slightly frustrated. Not hair-pulling or angry frustrated, but like stressed and over-worked. You can tell it's not at you, but you don't really have much sympathy for her at the moment.

"We haven't cleared anything up," she tells you, rubbing at her forehead. But then she sits up and sighs a little, looking you right in the eye. She gives you a quick smile, trying for reassuring, but you think that it's too far past that. "But I can tell you that we are pretty much looking for cancer at this point."

You hate how your body responds to that sentence. It feels somewhat cliché in retrospect. But your lungs tighten, and it feels a little hard to take in air. You also feel too cold, like the office suddenly dropped a few degrees.

Dr. Erik keeps talking at you, but you don't really hear the words. You sort of catch the gist. You could be non-cancerous, but they don't think so. It's probably a type of blood cancer, like leukemia. She lists all of the different types of cancers it can be, tells you a little about what might be happening in your body, and what the different cancers mean. "But we can't be sure, Dave. Not yet. So what happens next is a bone marrow biopsy."

She explains what that is (which sounds incredibly gruesome and painful, but that may just be the clinical aspect of it making it sound worse than it is) before you even look at Dirk.

He looks like he's not doing too much better. Or like he's even hearing any of this. But then he catches you looking and sort of ... give you this weak smile that makes everything feel so much worse.

Before you leave, you get an appointment to for your bone marrow biopsy and a referral to see Dr. Kumar, a hematologist that works at the hospital.

**&break&**

- techturnGodhead (TG) began pestering tentacleTherapist (TT) -

TG: do you remember when i told you about the blood work i was getting done  
TT: You know, "fucktard" isn't exactly the best way to get a response form someone.  
TT: And yes, I believe I do. How did that go? Were they able to determine that you are in fact human?  
TG: rose they think i have cancer  
TG: rose u there?  
TT: Yes, sorry. I was having a particularly hard time trying to find a response to that statement.  
TT: I was also hoping that you would continue on with the prank and fill me on the rest of the joke.  
TG: no joke here  
TT: So I can see.  
TT: Well.  
TT: How are you doing?  
TT: With that?  
TG: i dunno really  
TG: they dont know for sure  
TG: ive got another test before they can give me a better answer it really seems like they dont know  
TG: so im just sort of hopin theyre getting it wrong and that its just some infection or somethin  
TT: That would certainly be a better course of action. Did they say what type of cancer?  
TG: the doc said blood cancer if it is cancer but they she told me like a dozen different types of blood cancer it could be  
TT: And you have another test? When?  
TG: ive got the preliminary thing tomorrow after school  
TG: its a bone marrow biopsy so i think they have to do some stuff before they can do the actual test?  
TG: im not really sure about all of this  
TG: and i had a hard time asking questions at the doctors so nothing really got cleared up  
TT: Have you told John or Jade, yet?  
TG: no just you so far  
TG: i figure johns still in school and who knows what time it is where jades at  
TG: so i msged you first  
TT: Yes, that makes sense.  
TT: So. You never really answered my question. How are you doing?  
TG: i dont really know rose  
TG: trying not to think about it

* * *

FanFiction sucks for pesterlog.


End file.
